My feelings were not the result of any
marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the
consideration of my being a slave at all. It was _slavery_--not
its mere _incidents_--that I hated. I had been cheated. I saw
through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that
slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were
merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of
me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers
and deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone
for taking my liberty from me. The smiles of my mistress could
not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom. Indeed,
these, in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had changed;
and the reader will see that I had changed, too. We were both
victims to the same overshadowing evil--_she_, as mistress, I, as
slave. I will not censure her harshly; she cannot censure me,
for she knows I speak but the truth, and have acted in my
opposition to slavery, just as she herself would have acted, in a
reverse of circumstances.
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